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Katharine Hepburn
A promotional shot of Hepburn, c. 1940.
BornKatharine Houghton Hepburn
(1907-05-12)May 12, 1907
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
DiedJune 29, 2003(2003-06-29) (aged 96)
Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1928–94
Spouse(s)Ludlow Ogden Smith
(1928–34)
Partner(s)Spencer Tracy
(1941–67, his death)

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907–June 29, 2003) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned eight decades, she was adept in both dramatic and comedic roles. In 1999, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the greatest female star in the history of American cinema.

Raised in Connecticut by wealthy parents, Hepburn turned to acting after graduation from Bryn Mawr College. Favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her feature debut, 1932's A Bill of Divorcement, was a huge success and turned her into an instant star. Within eighteen months, she had won an Academy Award for Morning Glory. This initial success, however, was followed by a series of flops. Her brash personality and unconventional behavior (such as wearing trousers) began to turn audiences away, and in time she was labeled "Box Office Poison". By the end of the 1930s, her career was in serious jeopardy. Hepburn masterminded her own comeback, buying the film rights to The Philadelphia Story and only selling them on the condition that she be the star. The movie was a huge hit, and Hepburn would be in high demand from then on. Alongside her movie career, she regularly appeared on the stage, including numerous Shakespeare performances and a starring role in a Broadway musical.

Throughout her career, Hepburn co-starred with screen legends such as Cary Grant, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier and Henry Fonda. Her most famous pairing was with Spencer Tracy, with whom she made nine pictures over a 25 year period (the longest-running acting partnership the movie business has ever known) and had an enduring love affair.

Hepburn won more Academy Awards than any other actor or actress, with four wins out of 12 nominations. She also won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys, two Tony Awards and eight Golden Globes.

Early life and background

The Hepburn family in 1921. Katharine is on the far left.

Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of suffragette Katharine Martha Houghton (1878–1951), and Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn (1879–1962), a successful urologist and surgeon from Virginia with Maryland roots. The second of six children, her siblings were Thomas Houghton Hepburn (1905–21), Richard Houghton Hepburn (1911–2000), Robert Houghton Hepburn (1913–2007), Marion Houghton Hepburn Grant (1918–86), and Margaret Houghton Hepburn Perry (1920–2006). Hepburn's genealogy has been traced through the Whittier line back to King Louis IX of France (a great grandson of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom she played in The Lion in Winter). She is also listed as one of the descendants of the Mayflower compact author William Brewster. In 1910, the Hepburn family lived at 133 Hawthorne Street in Hartford. Eight years later, they moved to 352 Laurel Street, also in Hartford. By the time of Marion's birth, the family had moved to a large eight bedroom house at 201 Bloomfield Avenue in West Hartford.

Hepburn idolised her parents enormously, describing them as "perfect parents", and often credited them with giving her the belief and conditions with which she was able to make herself a success. Her mother was an active feminist, who taught the young Katharine never to give in, to be independent and fight for your future, and that women are as good as men. As a child, Hepburn joined her mother - the head of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association - on a number of 'Votes For Women' demonstrations. Her father, meanwhile, was pivitol in establishing the New England Social Hygiene Association, which tried to educate the general public about venereal disease. Hepburn said she realised from a young age that she was the product of two very remarkable parents, and never forgot her luck at "being born out of love and to live in an atmosphere of warmth and interest." She was close with her siblings her whole life, and said "I could not have been me without them."

Hepburn was a tomboy as a child, and would shave her head and call herself Jimmy. She got a thrill out of breaking into people's houses. Her father was a very good athlete, and taught and encouraged the children to swim, dive, ride, wrestle, learn gymnastics and play golf and tennis. Golf became a passion - she took daily lessons, could hit the ball a mile and score in the low eighties, and reached the semifinal of the Connecticut Young Women's Golf Championship. Hepburn loved swimming, and took daily dips in the cold waters that fronted her bayfront Connecticut home, generally believing that "the bitterer the medicine, the better it was for you." As a child she also adored movies, and would go to the movies every saturday night.

On April 3, 1921, while visiting friends in Greenwich Village, Hepburn found her adored older brother Tom dead from an apparent suicide. Many reports have said Tom had hanged himself. According to the coroner's report, Tom had tied one end of a sheet around his neck, the other to a post, and had effectively strangled himself. The Hepburn family denied it was suicide and insisted Tom's death must have been an experiment gone wrong. Fourteen-year-old Katharine was devastated. She shied away from other children, dropped out of Oxford School (now Kingswood-Oxford School), and began receiving private tutoring. For many years, she used Tom's birthday (November 8) as her own. It was not until her 1991 autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, that Hepburn revealed her true birth date of May 12, 1907.

Hepburn gained a place at Bryn Mawr College, her mother's alma mater. It was the first time she had been in school for several years, and she was self-conscious and uncomfortable with her classmates. She would purposely wake up early to avoid them and never went to the dinner hall. By her second year she had formed a group of friends, and found it easier to function. Hepburn was drawn to acting but roles in the school's plays were conditional on good grades. After initial struggles with her studies, she achieved her goals. She began acting in plays, such as The Truth about Blayds, The Cradle Song and the starring role in a big production of The Woman in the Moon. She was once suspended for breaking curfew and smoking in her room. Decades later, Hepburn also confirmed that after dark, she would go swimming naked in the college's Cloisters Fountain. She received a degree in history and philosophy in 1928, the same year she made her debut on Broadway.

Career

Broadway (1928 - 1932)

Hepburn left Bryn Mawr filled with ambition, determined to become an actress. A friend put her in touch with Edwin Knopf, who ran a successful theatre company in Baltimore. She went to see Knopf in person, taking her father's advice that 'if you want to get something - don't write, don't telephone, be there yourself'. Following an audition, Hepburn was cast in The Czarina with Mary Boland. She was very touched when a fellow cast member allowed her to have the best costume, believing Hepburn deserved it because she was going to be a big star, and never forgot this act of kindness. Hepburn received good notices for her small role, with the Printed Word describing her as "arresting." She was given a part in the next week's show, The Torch Bearers, but here Hepburn was less accomplished. She struggled to control her voice, which would get high-pitched when she was nervous. She left Baltimore after only two weeks to go and study voice with Frances Robinson-Duff in New York City.

The Knopf Stock Company decided to try a New York production of The Big Pond, with Kenneth MacKenna, and called for Hepburn to be the understudy to the leading lady. She had only been in the theatre for about four weeks, but Hepburn was confident in her abilities. One night during rehearsals, she was asked to read a scene. The leading lady was fired and replaced with Hepburn. On opening night, the terrified Hepburn turned up late and spoke her lines too high and fast to be comprehensible. She was promptly fired, and the original leading lady rehired. Undeterred, Hepburn joined forces with producer Arthur Hopkins, and accepted the role of a schoolgirl in These Days. The play opened in New Haven, then moved to the Cort Theatre on Broadway. Hepburn was praised, but reviews for the show were poor and it quickly closed. Within days, Hopkin hired Hepburn as the understudy to Hope Williams in Philip Barry's play Holiday. It was a big New York hit. But after only two weeks, Hepburn quit to marry Ludlow Odgen Smith and they began looking for a house in Pennsylvania. It took a vey short time for Hepburn to miss the work, and she asked Hopkins for her job back. He accepted, and she held the role for six months.

In 1929, Hepburn turned down a role in Meteor with the Theatre Guild to play the lead in Death Takes a Holiday. She thought the role was perfect and could not resist it. But she was again fired for problems with her voice. Hepburn refused to wallow, went straight back to the Guild and took an understudy role for minimum pay in A Month in the Country. By the spring of 1930, Hepburn felt she was getting nowhere. She went to Stockbridge to Alexander Kirkland & Strickland Company, to play whatever turned up. The first play was The Admirable Chrichton, then The Romantic Young Lady. Hepburn felt she was wasting her time and left. She continued to study with Duff, awaiting her next offer. In early 1931 she was cast in Art and Mrs. Bottle. The playwright Ben Levy disliked her appearance, however, and she was temporarily let go. Every one else in the company liked Hepburn, and she was rehired. They opened, and Hepburn was a hit with both the audiences and critics.

With a stock company in Ivoryton, Connecticut, Hepburn appeared in The Man Who Came Back and The Cat and the Canary. Hepburn learned a great deal here. During the summer of 1931, she was requested by Philip Barry to appear in his new play, The Animal Kingdom, alongside Leslie Howard. They began rehearsals in November, with Hepburn sure this was the role to make her a star. But Howard took a disliking to her, and before long she was fired yet again. When asking Barry why this was, he responded, "Well, to be brutally frank, you weren't very good." This threw the self-assured Hepburn, but she refused to give up. She accepted a small role in Alice Sit-by-the-Fire, with Laurette Taylor, but as rehearsals began she received an offer to read for a Broadway version of The Warrior's Husband. She got the part.

The Warrior's Husband proved to be Hepburn's break-out role. It was a greek fable about the love affair between Antiope and Theseus, with Hepburn playing the lead. The play opened in March 1932 at the Morosco Theatre, New York. Hepburn's entrance was down a narrow stairway with a stag over her shoulder, wearning a very short silver tunic. The show ran for six months, and Hepburn received excellent reviews. Agents from Hollywood began calling.

Hollywood (1932 - 1938)

Katharine Hepburn's first movie appearance, A Bill of Divorcement (1932).

A scout for Leland Hayward spotted Hepburn's appearance in The Warrior's Husband, and asked her to test for the part of Sydney Fairfield in the upcoming RKO film A Bill of Divorcement. Hepburn was unhappy with her test scene, and asked if she could use her own material from Holiday, which she did. She also did a test for Paramount. Knowing that she was popular, Hepburn demanded $1,500 per week for film work (at the time she was earning $75 per week). This was a huge amount for a first role, but after seeing her screen test director George Cukor became convinced Hepburn was perfect for the role of Sydney and encouraged the studio to agree to her demands. They signed Hepburn to a temporary contract with a three week guarantee. Hepburn arrived in California on July 4th, 1932. She starred in the film alongside noted actors John Barrymore and Billie Burke. At 5 feet, 7 inches (1.71 m), she was one of the tallest leading ladies of the day. George Cukor became a lifetime friend and colleague: they would make a total of eleven films together.

The reception for A Bill of Divorcement was overwhelmingly positive, and Hepburn received raving reviews. The New York Times described her performance as "exceptionally fine...Miss Hepburn's characterization is one of the finest seen on the screen". Variety wrote, "Standout here is the smash impression made by Katharine Hepburn in her first picture assignment. She has a vital something that sets her apart from the picture galaxy." RKO signed Hepburn to a contract. Her second film was Christopher Strong (1933), the story of an aviatrix and her affair with a famous man. The picture was not very successful. But for her next feature, Morning Glory, Hepburn won an Academy Award. It was the story of an aspiring actress, and Hepburn had known the role was perfect for her as soon as she read the script, insisting to producer Pandro Berman that she had to do it. That same year, Hepburn played Jo in the screen adaptation of Little Women. It broke box-office records, and Hepburn won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. The film was one of Hepburn's personal favourites.

The start to Hepburn's movie career had been an enormous success. One journalist predicted that "Someday...Katharine Hepburn will be our greatest actress." Intoxicated by this success, Hepburn - who had insisted on a theatre clause in her contract - wanted to return to the stage. Her old friend Jed Harris, one of the most successful theatre producers of the 1920s, asked her to appear in The Lake. Hepburn agreed to this, thinking she would be doing Harris a favour. The play opened in Washington. Harris' poor direction had erroded Hepburn's confidence, and she struggled with the performance. Nevertheless, Harris moved the play to New York without further rehearsal and Hepburn began to panic. The play was a disaster, and Hepburn was roasted by the critics. Dorothy Parker quipped, "Go to the Martin Beck Theatre and see Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B." The actress had already signed a ten week contract, and had to endure the embarrassment of rapidly declining box office sales. She worked hard to improve the performance, which she did, but when Jed Harris decided to take the show to Chicago, Hepburn refused to let it happen. She paid Harris every penny she had in the bank, $13,675, to close the production instead. Hepburn claimed this experience was important in teaching her to take responsibilty for her career.

Back in Hollywood, Hepburn struggled to find memorable roles. Spitfire (1934), The Little Minister (1934) and Break of Hearts (1935) made little impact. Meanwhile, her non-conformist, anti-Hollywood behavior off screen put her at odds with studio executives. During a time when studios managed every aspect of a star's career, Hepburn's self-possession was viewed as a liability. She had one success in 1935 with Alice Adams, the story of a girl's desperation to climb the social ladder. It was directed by George Stephens, and gave Hepburn her second Oscar nomination. But this was followed by four more forgettable pictures. Sylvia Scarlett (1935) was her first pairing with Cary Grant, but was a disaster at the box office. She played Mary Stuart in John Ford's Mary of Scotland (1936), but the project was also a failure. Around this time, Hepburn vied for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, but was deemed unsympathetic for the part by RKO producer Pandro S. Berman. A Woman Rebels (1936) and Quality Street (1937) both had a period setting, and flopped at the box office.

Although these films were regarded as underwhelming by critics, it was also clear that problems were arrising from Hepburn's attitude. Outspoken and intellectual with an acerbic tongue, she defied the era's conventions, preferring to wear pantsuits and minimal makeup. She also had a famously difficult relationship with the press, turning down most interviews, which did not help her image with the public. Hepburn could also be prickly with fans - though she relented as she aged, early in her career Hepburn often denied requests for autographs. On movie sets, she was eager to learn the technicalities of the business, and befriended many crew members. Even so, her refusal to sign autographs and answer personal questions earned her the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance" (an allusion to Catherine of Aragon). The extent of her unpopularity was shown when the release of critically praised movies still failed to bring audiences.

With Cary Grant in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938).

Stage Door (1937) paired Hepburn with Ginger Rogers, and she was praised for a role that held parallels to her own life. Next came the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938), co-staring Cary Grant and directed by Howard Hawks. It was popular with critics, and Hepburn was praised for her comedic talents, but it did not do well at the box office. It has since grown in stature to be considered one of America's finest comedies, often called the definitive screwball comedy. It was the last picture Hepburn did at RKO. By this point she had been voted "box office poison" in a poll taken by movie theatre owners. RKO, who were anxious to be rid of her, offered Hepburn a role in a film called Mother Carey's Chickens. She turned it down, knowing it would be a horrible role, and instead opted to buy herself out of her contract for $75,000. She signed on to do Holiday (1938) with Columbia, another comedy with Grant. Hepburn knew it was a good film, but it was too late to compensate for the previous flops. The next script she received, from Paramount, offered a salary of only $10,000 (down from $150,000 for Holiday) - a true sign of the state of her career.

Revival (1938 - 1951)

Hepburn with James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Hepburn decided she needed to create her own comeback vehicle. She asked friend Philip Barry, soon after she had starred in the film version of his play Holiday, to write a play especially for her. The result was The Philadelphia Story. The play opened in New York in 1938 and was an instant hit, running for 417 performances. Hepburn invested financially in the play and, with the help of ex-lover Howard Hughes, acquired the film rights and sold them to MGM, ensuring that she be the star. As part of the deal she also received the director of her choice, George Cukor, but the co-stars she wanted, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, were both unavailable. Louis B. Mayer promised her James Stewart and $150,000 "for anyone else you want or can get." Katharine chose her friend and previous co-star, Cary Grant. The resulting film was one of the biggest hits of 1940, breaking all records at the Radio City Music Hall. For her role as spoiled but misunderstood socialite Tracy Lord, Hepburn was nominated for her third Academy Award for Best Actress and won the New York Film Critics award. Her career was revived almost overnight.

Hepburn's was also responsible for the development of her next project, Woman of the Year (1942). The idea for the film was proposed to her by friend Garson Kanin. Hepburn then passed the outline on to Joseph L. Mankiewicz at MGM and said the price was $250,000 (half for her, half for the script). He liked it and agreed to make the movie. Hepburn contributed significantly to the script - reading it, suggesting cuts and word changes, and generally providing helpful enthusisasm for the project. Spencer Tracy was cast as her co-star and George Stephens directed. In preparation, Tracy and Hepburn studied each other's films extensively. Tracy was initially wary of Katharine, thinking she had dirty fingernails and was probably a lesbian. But the pair soon established a connection, and would go on to make a further eight films together. Woman of the Year was another success for Hepburn, and she received her forth Academy Award nomination for playing independent career-woman Tess Harding. The film set the template for the 'battle of the sexes' theme that ran through much of the Tracy-Hepburn oeuvre. Forty years later it was turned into a successful musical with Hepburn's friend Lauren Bacall.

Tracy and Hepburn in the classic film Adam's Rib (1949).

Hepburn returned to New York to appear in another Philip Barry play, Without Love. Her next film was another with Tracy - this time a dark mystery, Keeper of the Flame (1943). She also made a cameo appearance, playing herself, in Stage Door Canteen (1943). Following this she played a Chinese peasant in the drama Dragon Seed (1944), and then reunited with Tracy for the film version of Without Love (1945). Undercurrent (1946), a film noir with Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, then followed. In 1947 she portrayed Clara Wieck Schumann in Song of Love. There were two more pictures with Tracy in 1947 and 1948, The Sea of Grass, a period drama, and Frank Capra's political drama State of the Union.

The subsequent pictures with Tracy had failed to repeat the success of Woman of the Year. But the 1949 film Adam's Rib, their sixth pairing, was a return to similar terriory - written specifically for them by friends of the couple, Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon - and Hepburn described it as "perfect for and me". The duo played married lawyers who end up opposing each other in court, and the film was a big hit. Critic Bosley Crowther was full of praise for the film, and noted Tracy and Hepburn's "perfect compatability". The following year, Hepburn made her first venture into Shakespeare, playing Rosalind in As You Like It. The production began at the Cort Theatre in New York, where it was virtually sold out for 148 performances, and then toured the United States.

One of Hepburn's most famous roles was that of Rose Sayer in The African Queen (1951), a prim spinster missionary in Africa (around the time of World War I), who convinces Humphrey Bogart's character, a hard-drinking riverboat captain, to use his boat to destroy a German ship. The African Queen was shot mostly on location in the Congo, where almost all the cast and crew suffered from malaria and dysentery, except director John Huston and Bogart, neither of whom ever drank any water. Hepburn disapproved of the two men's heavy alcohol consumption and drank nothing but water to spite them. She wound up so sick with dysentery that, even months after she returned home, the actress was still ill. The film gave Hepburn her fifth Best Actress nomination, but she lost to Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire. The trip was so significant to Hepburn that later in life she wrote a book about filming the movie: The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, which made her a best-selling author at the age of 77.

Mid career (1952 - 1968)

Hepburn's next project after The African Queen was the sports comedy Pat and Mike (1952). It was the second film written specifically as a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle by the husband and wife team of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. It occurred to Kanin, a close friend of the couple, that Hepburn's audience were missing an important aspect of her personality - her athleticism. Thus the character of Pat Pemberton was written - a talented sports woman who is coached by hard-boiled promoter Mike Conovan (Tracy). Hepburn performed all the sports footage in the film herself, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The same year, she appeared in London's West End in George Bernard Shaw's The Millionairess. She was an enormous success. The production moved to New York for a further ten weeks, and the Shubert Theatre sold out for the whole run. Hepburn would later try hard to get the play adapted into a film, to be written and directed by Preston Sturges, but the project was turned down.

Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi in David Lean's Summertime (1955).

In 1955, Hepburn toured Australia for six months with the Old Vic theatre company. She played Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew and Isabella in Measure for Measure. It was a great success. The same year, Hepburn starred in David Lean's romantic drama Summertime. It was loosely based on the play The Time of the Cuckoo by Arthur Laurents, and was filmed entirely on location in Venice. Hepburn played a lonely spinster who has a love affair with Rossano Brazzi. She described it as "a very emotional part", and found it fascinating to work with Lean. Hepburn performed the stunt where she falls into a canal herself, and developed a chronic eye infection as a result. The performance earned her another Academy Award nomination. She was also nominated the following year, again for playing a lonely women empowered by a love affair, for her work opposite Burt Lancaster in The Rainmaker (1956). Less success that year came from The Iron Petticoat (1956), a reworking of the classic comedy Ninotchka, with Bob Hope. The film was poorly received and has been called Hepburn's worst performance.

In 1957 she returned to Shakespeare. Appearing in Stratford, Connecticut, she repeated her Portia in The Merchant of Venice and played Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. For her next two films, the theme of playing spinsters - which had proven successful for Hepburn - continued. Firstly in Desk Set (1957), an office-based comedy with Spencer Tracy, and then in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Her work as Violet Venable gave Hepburn her eighth Oscar nomination. Hepburn reappeared in Stratford in 1960 to play Viola in Twelfth Night and Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (with Robert Ryan playing Antony). Theatre enthusiast Garson Kanin believed she was one of the few actresses to succeed completely as Cleopatra. Hepburn herself was proud of the role. Her repertoire was further improved when she appeared in Sidney Lumet's film version of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). The complex role of morphine addicted Mary Tyrone earned Hepburn an Oscar nomination and a Best Actress award at Cannes Film Festival.

Hepburn in her award winning performance of Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (1968).

At this point, Hepburn took a break in her career to care for the sickly Spencer Tracy. She would not appear in a film again until 1967's Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. It was a triumphant return for Hepburn, as she received her second Academy Award for Best Actress, thirty-four years after winning her first. The film dealt with racism, with Hepburn's own neice, Katharine Houghton, playing her daughter who wants to marry a black man (Sydney Poitier). It was the final Tracy-Hepburn outing: Tracy died just three weeks after completion. Hepburn's next role was Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion In Winter (1968). She read extensively in preparation for the role, where she starred opposite Peter O'Toole. It was filmed in Montmajour Abbey, the south of France, which Hepburn enjoyed immensely. For the second year running, Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress (tied with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl). That same year, she starred in the broadway musical Coco, about the life of Coco Chanel. Notices for the production were poor, but Hepburn herself was praised and her drawing power ensured it was hugely popular with the public. The show's run was twice extended. Hepburn received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, losing to close friend Lauren Bacall.

Late career (1969 - 1994)

Hepburn's next film role was in The Madwomen of Chaillot (1969), a flop, followed by a film version of Euripides' The Trojan Women (1971). This was also unsuccessful at the box office, but did win Hepburn an award for Best Actress from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards. Next was an adaptation of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973), directed by Tony Richardson. Hepburn then ventured into television for the first time, appearing in a TV Movie of The Glass Menagerie (1973) and Love Among the Ruins (1975), a London-based period drama with Laurence Olivier, for which she won an Emmy Award. Next she starred with John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn (1975), a sequel to his Oscar-winning western True Grit. Hepburn's role was very similar to that which she had played in The African Queen - a deeply religious spinster who teams up with a masculine loner to avenge a family member's death. In 1976 she returned to the stage for A Matter of Gravity. In 1978 she starred in the adventure comedy Olly Olly Oxen Free, one of the least successful films of her career. The TV Movie The Corn Is Green followed, which was filmed in Wales. It was Hepburn's last of eleven films she made with George Cukor, and gained her an Emmy nomination. Her next feature paired her with Henry Fonda to play an elderly couple in On Golden Pond (1981). It was a big success, and won Hepburn a record-winning fourth Oscar. The same year she also received a Tony Award nomination for her work on The West Side Waltz.

Katharine Hepburn's final movie appearance, Love Affair (1994).

Hepburn remained active into her eighties, despite having a very visible essential tremor. She starred in the dark comedy Grace Quigley (1984), about an elderly women sho begins blackmailing a hitman. In 1985, Hepburn presented and co-produced a documentary about the life and career of Spencer Tracy. She then featured in a series of TV movies. Mrs Delafield Wants To Marry (1986) had her playing an upperclass window who falls in love with a Jewish man, despite her childrens' objections. She recieved an Emmy nomination for her work. Laura Lansing Slept Here (1987) was a comedy about a famous author challenged to live with a 'normal family' for one week. In 1991 she released her autobiography, Me: Stories of my Life, and an accompanying documentary All About Me. A Golden Globe nomination came for The Man Upstairs (1992) with Ryan O'Neal. She worked opposite Anthony Quinn in This Can't Be Love, (1994) which was largely based on Hepburn's own life, with numerous references to her personality and career. Her next TV movie was One Christmas (1994), based on a short story by Truman Capote, for which Hepburn received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Hepburn's final appearance in a theatrically-released film was 1994's Love Affair where, at 87 years old, she played a small role alongside Annette Benning and Warren Beatty. Roger Ebert noted that it was the first time Hepburn had looked frail, but that the "magnificent spirit" was still there and said her scenes "steal the show".


Personal life

In 1928, Hepburn married socialite businessman Ludlow Ogden Smith, whom she had met while at Bryn Mawr. The relationship was strained, as Hepburn pursued her career on the stage and traveled. The move to Hollywood in 1932 cemented their estrangement, and in 1934, Hepburn travelled to Mexico to get a quick divorce. The couple had no children. Fearing that the Mexican divorce was not legal, Ludlow obtained a second divorce in the United States in 1942 and a few days later he remarried. Hepburn often expressed her gratitude toward Ludlow for his financial and moral support in the early days of her career, and took full blame for the breakdown of their relationship. "Luddy" continued to be a lifelong friend to her and the rest of the Hepburn family. After her marriage, Hepburn had long-term relationships with her agent Leland Hayward and with entrepreneur Howard Hughes.

It was with Spencer Tracy that Hepburn claimed to find true love, saying in her autobiography: "It was a unique feeling that I had for . I would have done anything for him." Meeting on the set of Woman of the Year, she said she "knew right away that I found him irresistable." The relationship between Hepburn and Tracy was complicated. Although Tracy and his wife had been separated since the 1930s, he continued to think of himself as a family man and neither party ever pursued a divorce. Hepburn didn't interfere and never fought for marriage. To avoid controversy, Hepburn and Tracy chose to keep their relationship private. It was often strained by Tracy's alcoholism, and there were periods in the 1950s where they spent time apart. While filming Plymouth Adventure, Tracy had an affair with his co-star Gene Tierney. Tracy's health declined significantly in the 1960s, and Hepburn took a break in her career, following completion of Long Day's Journey Into Night, to care for him. The couple lived together during this period, and Hepburn was with Tracy when he died on June 10, 1967. Out of consideration for Tracy's family, Hepburn did not attend his funeral. She never watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, saying it would be too painful. It was only after Louise Tracy's death, in 1983, that Hepburn began to speak publicly about her feelings for Tracy. In response to the question of why she stayed with him for so long, despite the nature of their relationship, she said "I don't know. I just know I never could have left him."

Regarding religion, Hepburn stated in her 1973 interview with Dick Cavett that although she agreed with Christian principles, and thought highly of Jesus Christ, she did not believe in religion or the afterlife. She told a journalist in October 1991 "I'm an atheist and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people."

Hepburn was politically liberal. At the height of the pre-McCarthy stages of the post-war Second Red Scare, Hepburn's progressive social views became a target of anti-communist hysteria. Myron Fagan, the right-wing writer, producer and director at the center of Hollywood's anti-communist witch-hunting, denounced Hepburn after she spoke up on behalf of fellow actors and actresses, directors, and screenwriters facing the blacklist of the 1940s. Despite Hepburn's lack of actual membership in, or any formal links to, the American Communist Party, Fagan, in his speech against "the Reds" in Hollywood, named Hepburn as an example, making the claim that "Katharine Hepburn's love for Joe Stalin is no secret." Although it has never been shown to be founded, George Orwell listed Hepburn as a crypto-communist along with 34 others in a letter to his friend Celia Kirwan on May 2, 1949. Hepburn lent her name to various liberal causes, particularly family planning. In 1985, she received the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, presented by her friend Corliss Lamont.

Hepburn's primary hobbies outside of acting were sports and painting. Throughout her life she played tennis daily, swam regularly, frequently took long walks, cycled, and at one point was one of the best lady golfers in the United States. Even in her eighties she was still playing tennis every day, as seen in her 1991 documentary All About Me. She took up painting in the 1930s, and fully embraced it in the 1960s. Despite being talented, she never sold any of her work. A small bust she made of Spencer Tracy's head was featured in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

Hepburn's family beach home, in Old Saybrook, was destroyed in the 1938 New England Hurricane (September 21, 1938). Hepburn, her mother, brother, and servants narrowly escaped before the house was lifted off its foundations and washed away. Her 1932–1933 Best Actress Oscar was lost in the storm but later found intact.

Hepburn was one of only two witnesses (the other being Garson Kanin) to the wedding of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

In later years, Hepburn developed essential tremor, a chronic neurological condition that causes involuntary shaking of the head, hands, and feet.

Death and legacy

"Every actress in the world looked up to her with a kind of reverence and a sense of 'Oh, boy, if only I could be like her.' We never looked at her with envy or jealousy because she worked with such grace and wit and charm. You only wished that one day you could be like her."

—Elizabeth Taylor, who worked with Hepburn on Suddenly, Last Summer, speaking after her death.

Katharine Hepburn died on June 29, 2003 at Fenwick, the Hepburn family home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96 years old and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut in the family plot. In honor of her extensive theater work, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for one minute.

In 2004, in accordance with Hepburn's wishes, her personal effects were put up for auction with Sotheby's in New York. Hepburn had meticulously collected an extraordinary amount of material relating to her career and place in Hollywood over the years, as well as personal items such as a bust of Spencer Tracy she sculpted herself (used as a prop in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on the desk where Sidney Poitier makes his phone call) and her own oil paintings. The auction garnered $5.8 million, which Hepburn willed mostly to her family and close friends, including television journalist Cynthia McFadden.

Hepburn is considered one of history's most influential and iconic actresses, a 'true Hollywood legend'. She has been honored in a number of ways since her death:

  • A theatre was built in Hepburn's name in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Hepburn's family beach home had been in the Fenwick section of Old Saybrook, a place that she loved and visited regularly throughout her life. In October 2007, the town received $200,000 from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Historic Restoration Grant for the theatre, totalling one million dollars received in grants for the project. During the spring of 2009, the state-of-the-art Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center and Theater was opened. It is fondly known as 'The Kate', which was Hepburn's nickname among friends.
  • On September 8 and 9, 2006, Bryn Mawr College, Hepburn's alma mater, launched the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, dedicated to both the actress and her mother. The centre challenges women to lead publicly engaged lives and to take on important and timely issues affecting women. The center regularly awards the Hepburn Medal, which recognizes women whose lives, work and contributions embody the intelligence, drive and independence of the four-time-Oscar-winning actress.
49th Street, named after Katharine Hepburn.
  • Hepburn, who resided for decades in a brownstone located at 244 East 49th Street in the borough of Manhattan of New York City, was honored posthumously by neighbors in her community, Turtle Bay. First, a garden near her home was dedicated in her name in 2004. The garden contains 12 stepping stones (representing her 12 Oscar nominations) each inscribed with quotes. One reads: "I remember when walking as a child, it was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition." In addition to the garden, the intersection of East 49th Street and 2nd Avenue has been renamed Katharine Hepburn Place (see picture) by the city.
  • To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, in May 2007 cable channel Turner Classic Movies dedicated a week of its evening broadcast hours to her films and documentaries on her life. Warner Brothers Home video also celebrated the 100th anniversary of her birth by releasing a box set of movies not previously available on DVD – Morning Glory (1933), Sylvia Scarlett (1936), Dragon Seed (1944), Without Love (1945), Undercurrent (1946), and the TV movie The Corn Is Green (1979).
  • In 2009, the New York Public Library held an exhibition of materials relating to Hepburn called 'Katharine Hepburn: In Her Own Files'. It ran from June to October, and showcased photos of her well-known roles, several of Hepburn’s play transcripts, candid backstage photos, and annotated rehearsal notes.
  • Hepburn was honored in the "Legends of Hollywood" stamp series as the sixteenth star to earn her own stamp. These commemorative stamps were unveiled in Old Saybrook, CT and became available for sale in U.S. post offices on May 12, 2010, which would have been her 103rd birthday.

In the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, Hepburn was portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. It marked the first instance when an Academy Award–winning actress was turned into an Academy Award–winning role.

Hepburn's professional legacy is carried on within her family. Her niece is actress Katharine Houghton, who appeared as her daughter in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn's grandniece is actress Schuyler Grant, who appeared in Anne of Green Gables and All My Children.

Awards

Work

Stage

Filmography

Main article: Katharine Hepburn filmography

Television

Books

  • Making of the African Queen: Or How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind (1987)
  • Me: Stories of My Life (1991)

References

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  92. Wayne, Jane Ellen (2006). The Leading Men of MGM. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 219. ISBN 0786717688.
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  96. Blyth, Myrna (1 October, 1991). "Kate Talks Straight". Ladies Home Journal. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  97. Fagan, Myron. "Speech on the Opening Night Performance of "Thieves in Paradise," April 12, 1948. In Red Stars in Hollywood: Their Helpers, Fellow Travelers, and Co-Conspirators, P. 8. http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/AmRad/redstarshollywood.pdf
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  112. Yahoo News. Stamp series

Bibliography

External links

Awards for Katharine Hepburn
Academy Award for Best Actress
1928–1950
1951–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Academy Award for Best Actress
1928–1950
1951–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Academy Award for Best Actress
1928–1950
1951–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1952–1967
British
Foreign
1968–present
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1952–1967
British
Foreign
1968–present
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress
1946–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
1952–1975
1976–2000
2001–present

Template:1990 Kennedy Center Honorees

Template:AFI 100 Stars

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